Scouting, Volume 43, Number 7, September 1955 Page: 6
24 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Is your council's camp big enough?
Will it be big enough ten years
from now? How about program fa-
cilities? Buildings? Equipment?
Staff? Your camp promotion?
What's your camp doing — or
planning — for Explorers? When
Timmy Johnson and his budtlies
hnock on the gate of your coun-
cil camp, will there be room?
is t/our
By WILLIAM D. CAMPBELL
Chairman, National Committee on Camping
National Headquarters
Boy Scouts oj America
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Dear Sir,
I am a Tenderfoot Scout eleven years old and / want
to go camping. How do you put up a tent and take it
down? I would like to know how to build a fire, too,
and where 1 can go camping. Please send me a booklet.
Thank you.
TIMMY JOHNSON
Chicago, Illinois
This boy wanted camping so much he sat down and
wrote the Boy Scout national headquarters about it.
Millions of boys like him may not write a letter to head-
quarters—but they want camping just as much. How
many of them will get it? That depends on us.
Camping Is Growing
Scout camping—like Scouting itself—is growing fast.
And the market for camping—boys-—is growing just as
fast. Can our camp supply keep up with the increasing
camp demand? Let's see where we are now—and where
we must be tomorrow.
Consider our physical plant—the land, buildings,
basic facilities. Our councils maintain a total of 820
reservations where Scout camping is king: their com-
bined areas total 430,000 acres—671 square miles—
better than half the size of the whole state of Rhode
Island. An investment of more than $45,000,000 for
the boys of America! And yet the boys of America are
becoming Scouts at an ever-increasing rate. Will even
these great camping resources be adequate a decade
from now?
Ever stop to think how our mounting birth rate,
better recruiting, and better camp promotion work to-
gether to multiply camping needs? Consider Council X.
They now recruit 25 per cent of their boys as Scouts
and get 40 per cent of these into camo. Last summer they
had a thousand boys in camp, taxing it to the full. By
1960, their board estimates, they will be recruiting at
least 30 per cent of their boys as Scouts and will have
50 per cent of these in camp. These increases, plus popu-
lation gains by 1960, will mean 1,860 Scouts in camp—
an increase in just five years of 86 per cent!
Have you looked at your camp figures lately?
Nationally, the picture is similar: 35 per cent of all
Scouts in 1954 enjoyed a long-term camp experience,
41 per cent of all Scout and Explorer units went to camp
under their own leadership, 58 per cent of all units re-
ported at least ten days and nights of camping during
the year. While these figures are an all-time high, it is
clear that thousands of Scouts and Explorers are not
getting the camping experience that, as members of
the Boy Scouts of America, they have a right to expect
—and we, as adult leaders, have a duty to provide. It is
also clear that—looking ahead to membership and popu-
lation gains—the job will be big, both in size and im-
portance.
The Job Ahead
The camping future of your council is a four-sided
picture: facilities, promotion, man power, and program.
How well you meet the challenge of your area depends
upon how well you plan and build around these four
cornerstones of your camping house. Here are some
things to think about.
Your Camp Facilities. Ask yourself questions like
these: Are our facilities adequate for the moment or
do we need immediate action? If we're all right now,
what about five years—ten, fifteen—from now? If ex-
pansion is the answer, can we grow where we are, must
we get additional property, or should we think in terms
of a completely new and larger camp? Is our camp
property rented or leased? Rentals can be terminated,
leases can expire or be canceled. Shouldn't we look to
absolute ownership as the best bet in these days of rapid
change, expanding suburbs, higher costs?
The trend these days is toward acquiring large reser-
vations, then developing them to keep pace with the
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 43, Number 7, September 1955, periodical, September 1955; New York, New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth329238/m1/8/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.